LONDON (AP) 鈥� Go into many bookstores, and the shelves will be dominated by men.
The Women鈥檚 Prize for Nonfiction hopes to change that.
鈥淣onfiction is still perceived to some extent as a man鈥檚 game,鈥� said British historian Suzannah Lipscomb, who is chairing the judging panel for the inaugural edition of the U.K.-based prize. The judges announced a list of 16 contenders for the 30,000 pound ($38,000) award on Thursday.
An offshoot of the 28-year-old , whose past winners include Zadie Smith, and , the new prize is open to female English-language writers from any country in any nonfiction genre.
Lipscomb noted that in 2022, only 26.5% of nonfiction books reviewed in Britain鈥檚 newspapers were by women, and male writers dominated established nonfiction writing prizes.
鈥淚n all the ways that we recognize expertise and authority 鈥� giving it exposure, giving it attention, sales, money earned by the authors 鈥� women were not featuring as highly as their male counterparts,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o I think that we do still need to close what (journalist) Mary Ann Sieghart called the authority gap. And that鈥檚 why this prize is needed.鈥�
The company Nielsen Book Research found in 2019 that women bought 59% of all the books sold in the U.K., but men accounted for just over half of adult nonfiction purchases.
Authors from the United States, Australia, Canada, India, Jamaica, the Philippines and the U.K. are on the prize longlist, chosen from 120 books submitted by publishers.
They include author-activist 鈥檚 plunge into online misinformation, 鈥淒oppleganger,鈥� and journalist Patricia Evangelista鈥檚 鈥淪ome People Need Killing,鈥� a searing investigation of the Philippines鈥� drug war.
There are works by leading academics and books on science and technology, including Cat Bohannon鈥檚 鈥淓ve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution鈥� and Madhumita Murgia鈥檚 鈥淐ode-Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI.鈥�
The list spans genres including travelogue (Alice Albinia鈥檚 鈥淭he Britannias: An Island Quest鈥�), history (Leah Redmond Chang鈥檚 Renaissance study 鈥淵oung Queens鈥�), biography (Anna Funder鈥檚 鈥淲ifedom: Mrs. Orwell鈥檚 Invisible Life鈥�) and autobiography (Safiya Sinclair鈥檚 鈥淗ow to Say Babylon: A Jamaican Memoir鈥�).
Asked what unites the disparate roster, Lipscomb quotes a line from Funder鈥檚 book: 鈥淭he project of good writing is to reveal to us the world we thought we knew.鈥�
鈥淭here is a trend towards redressing wrongs, telling untold stories, exposing truths, revealing hypocrisies,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hat sense of making good comes out of them.鈥�
Six finalists for the nonfiction award will be announced on March 27, and the winner will be unveiled at a ceremony in London on June 13.
Jill Lawless, The Associated Press
